Then Mr Boylan drummed on the table with his fingers and Mr Keenan hummed along with him as he bit into his sandwich. Mr Boylan sang: ‘Row row row your boat gently down the stream merrily merrily merrily merrily life is but a dream!’
‘I think I’ll get you to teach it to me when you’ve it mastered,’ he said. ‘My lot could do with a bit of music. Crowd of bloody hoboes!’
‘I don’t think it’d be much good me trying to knock it into mine,’ said Mr Keenan.
‘I daresay that rascal Belton wouldn’t thank you for Mozart, Mr Keenan,’ laughed Mr Boylan.
Mr Keenan raised his eyes to heaven.
‘God give me strength,’ he said.
Then Mr Macklin who taught first class came in and dumped a load of change on the table.
‘So help me God I’ll be carted out of this place,’ he said.
‘You’ve been doing a bit of collecting there, Mr Macklin,’ said Mr Keenan with his eyes twinkling.
‘You might as well be talking to the wall as talking to some of them and that’s not a word of a lie. I want the money for the savings club in by next Friday at the latest I says – but do you think they’d listen? Oh, no! That’s Finnerty’s and Howard’s right there – stroll in as cool as you like – I forgot! I forgot now I ask you!’
‘Wasting your breath,’ sighed Mr Keenan. His tea geysered out of his Thermos and he rubbed his hands along his thighs as he said ‘Well, did you see it last night?’
‘Fecked if I could,’ said Mr Boylan. ‘Herself had to go to the mother’s and you know what it’s like when that starts. It was nearly half-past eleven by the time we got out. I was fit to be tied.’
‘You missed it now – you missed it,’ teased Mr Keenan. Then he grinned and put on an American accent as he said, ‘Who loves ya baby?’
‘Well man dear now it was terrific,’ he said. ‘The Mafia were running this casino you see and Kojak makes on he knows nothing about it. So one night him and Crocker go in dressed up as Mafia men themselves and there’s Kojak with the lollipop – will you get out, Brennan! For the love and honour of St Joseph can I not even have my dinner in peace without some brat bothering me? Is that what it’s come to now!’
‘Sir, my ball’s gone up on the roof.’
‘Did you hear what I said, Brennan! Are you deaf as well as stupid! I said get out. Get out!’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Brennan, and left the room with his head down.
‘He has my heart scalded that fellow,’ said Mr Keenan. ‘Him and that bloody ball – if I got it for him once I got it for him ten times this week.’ He wiped some crumbs off his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket and snapped: ‘Well, it can stay there. That’s where it can stay! For I’m not getting it!’
That put them all in such bad humour, there didn’t seem to be any point in talking about Kojak any more. After a bit, Mr Boylan said, ‘Well – what do you think of the latest carry-on? A school bus driver. Shot by the side of the road in front of the kiddies.’ Before Mr Keenan could answer, the door crashed open and in came Mr Bell jangling his keys. He was carrying a copy of The Six Million Dollar Man Annual. He gave it to Mr Keenan and told him to keep it in the staff room at least until Christmas. There was a bit of a quiver in his voice when he said it but no one noticed. You never thought of someone as rock solid as Mr Bell having a quiver in their voice.
Chilli
Malachy licked his fingers and said yes indeed this chilli is definitely coming on well. He let it bubble away in the saucepan. Marion loved chilli. Between that and the record, she was going to get some surprise. He took ‘Chirpy Chirpy’ out of its sleeve and put it on the turntable. It was the first record she had ever bought. That was why she loved it so much. He checked the chilli one more time and then he went into the sitting room to wait for her.
The baby next door was laughing and there was a smell of frying bacon. On the radio they reported a few more murders. A politician came on and said that the people of the country would have to get it into their heads that they had been living beyond their means for the past five years. He said that an ESRI report had clearly indicated that the country was sliding deeper and deeper into recession. An economist came on and said that we had nobody to blame but ourselves, what did we expect. Then another politician said that that wasn’t true at all and what the economy needed was not more of these Keynesian dictators with their grey faces and sharp suits but more optimism, a reflation of the economy that’s what’s needed. The other politician said sorry, Michael, but the boom times are over we are paying for the boom times now. I know that and you know that and the Irish people are mature enough to know that and do something about it. Then there were the closing prices on the stock exchange.
All of a sudden Malachy felt exhausted. He didn’t want to think any more about school or Stephen Webb or anything. He closed his eyes so there would be nothing but there was something – Stephen Webb standing there looking at him. He was bouncing a ball and saying, ‘Hello, teacher.’
He kept on bouncing it and bouncing it until Malachy said, ‘Stop it! Stop bouncing it!’
He said, ‘I’m not bouncing it, sir. It’s Pat Hourican.’
‘It is not, Webb. It’s you!’ Malachy cried.
‘No, sir, it was Pat,’ he said again, ‘wasn’t it, Kyle?’
Malachy hadn’t seen Kyle Collins at first but he was there all right. He hadn’t a ball though. He was just standing there with his hands behind his back. Smirking.
Malachy said, ‘Collins! Come over here!’
‘No, sir, I won’t! My mammy says you’re not allowed to tell me what to do.’
Webb smirked again and kept bouncing the ball really close to Malachy’s leg to annoy him.
‘My daddy says you’re no good of a teacher,’ he said.
‘Tee hee hee,’ went Collins.
‘Oh you’re so smart, Collins, you are just so smart, aren’t you?’
‘No, sir, he’s just Kyle,’ chuckled Webb.
‘You needn’t think you’re annoying me, Stephen,’ he said. ‘You can laugh all you like.’
Did he really think he could annoy him? Did he really think anything he had to say was going to bother him in the slightest? Malachy curled up in the armchair and laughed at the idea. It was preposterous! The more he thought about it the more preposterous it seemed. Which was why he laughed into the boy’s face. That took him by surprise all right. He hadn’t been expecting that. Now he didn’t know what to do. Malachy stared right into his eyes and said, ‘Well – what are you going to do, Webb? You’re not so sure now, are you! You’re not quite so sure now – hmm? Hmm?’
Webb was stunned. He didn’t know what to do. He hadn’t the foggiest idea. Then suddenly the phone rang.
It was Marion. She was in the Project Arts Centre. There was so much noise he could barely make out what she was saying. She was with the Electric Strangers and the crowd from the school. She said the party was only starting and to come on. The band were recording in the studio around the corner. Their single had made it into the lower regions of the charts in England. ‘They’re over the moon,’ she said.
He said that he had a pot of chilli on. ‘Oh fuck the chilli,’ she said. Then all he could hear was, ‘Hello? Hello?’ The alarm was wailing again outside and he wished it would stop he just wished it would please stop.
How long he’d been sitting in the armchair he did not know. He shivered.
‘Look, teacher! There’s only one bar of your fire working!’ said Stephen smiling. ‘At home we have three electric fires and they’re all working!’ ‘Oh, really? Have you now,’ Malachy said. ‘Well aren’t you wonderful?’
‘No, sir, I’m just Stephen,’ he said. He sucked his little white cheeks in like a girl and rolled his eyes as Kyle’s shoulders heaved and he hid behind his hand.
Then Malachy said, ‘Stephen, I have an idea. Why don’t we pretend this is you, hmm?’
Webb crinkled up his nose, looking puzzled. ‘Me?’
 
; ‘Yes, Stephen. Is that all right?’
He lowered his head, ‘Yes, sir,’ he said softly.
‘Very well, then,’ Malachy said and lifted up the foam cushion from the chair. He held it up, ‘So, let’s pretend this is your face then, shall we?’
He said yes and then Malachy sank his fist in it – bumph!
‘What do you think of that, Stephen?’
He didn’t say anything.
Malachy looked at him. ‘How did you like that, Mr Webb. How did you like that, hmm?’
That soon shut him up. There wasn’t so much cheek out of him after that. Oh but it was funny! There were tears in his eyes it was so funny as in the kitchen the record played over and over and the chilli boiled away to nothing.
Eyes
He was over the moon when they met after school and headed off towards O’Connell Street. So where will we go she said. How about Good Time Charly’s he said. Sounds good to me, she smiled.
All the way through the meal he couldn’t shut up. He knew that he was talking too much and boring her but he was afraid that if he sat there like a dummy thinking about school it would be even worse. He asked her did she want any dessert and she said no. He said, ‘You can have Black Forest gateau, lemon mirange, apple pie with cream, apple pie without cream. You name it, Marion, you can have it. Come on, Marion, what’s it going to be?’
Then she said, ‘I said I didn’t want any, Malachy!’
He wasn’t sure what to do when she said that. He just looked at her as if he’d been struck dumb.
‘I’ve got an idea,’ she said. ‘Why don’t we go and see the new Jack Nicholson movie? It’s on at the Adelphi. What do you say?’
He grinned from ear to ear.
‘Sure thing,’ he said.
She squeezed his hand. ‘Oh, Malachy,’ she said.
‘That old Joe Buck,’ he said.
‘Yeah – do you remember that?’ She smiled.
When he went up to pay he kept looking down at her. He just wanted to look at her and the way she had her hair combed back and the freckles around her eyes. The only reason he dropped the money when he was handing it over the counter was because his hands were all sweaty. It wasn’t because he was looking down at her. It was just an accident that was all. An accident.
When they got outside Marion said, ‘Sometimes I just wish you wouldn’t do that, Malachy. I get so embarrassed.’
‘Do what?’ he asked and she said, ‘You know – you know!’
He said, ‘What, Marion? I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Looking at me the way you were doing in there – what do you think I’m going to do? Do you think I’m going to get up and run off out of the restaurant or something?’
His tongue went all sandy when she said that and he felt like a bollocks. Not that it helped things very much when he started blabbing on again instead of shutting his mouth and leaving it alone. ‘Marion, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I won’t do it again, I didn’t realize I was doing it, Marion,’ and so on. Which was disastrous because it was just the kind of thing you don’t want to say when you know you are creeping towards the edge of the grave.
But it didn’t bother Malachy. Oh, no! He knew they had been together far too long to let a little thing like that bother them. They sure had! Off they went up Abbey Street to the Adelphi like the old days when they had gone to Midnight Cowboy and The Graduate in the very same cinema! Hey – where’s that Joe Buck! Excuse me – can you tell me the way to the Statue of Liberty? Yeah – it’s up in Central Park taking a leak. If you hurry you might be in time to catch the supper show! Ha! Boy did Malachy laugh when he thought of that.
Right now Marion had her head stuck in a big box of popcorn. Next thing you know Roman Polanski comes tearing at Jack Nicholson with the knife. The hoods held Jack fast and the blade went right up his nose. Roman said that he didn’t like snoopers. He did not like them at all. He poked the knife up a bit further. ‘Here Kitty Kitty,’ he said as he took a slice out of it and sent blood skiting all over the place. So that was the end of his nose for Mr Jack Nicholson or should I say JJ Gittes private eye. After that, he spent the rest of a movie with a big plaster stuck on it. He wasn’t too pleased about that. When Faye Dunaway said something smart to him, he got her up against the wall and said, ‘I like my nose, Mrs Mulwray. I like breathing through it. You got that?’ She sure had. When you were dealing with Jack Nicholson you made sure you had. You didn’t fuck around with Jack. Other people maybe. But not Jack. On the way out, Malachy was still saying it, his adenoids on overdrive, ‘I like my nose, Mrs Mulwray. I like breathing through it.’ ‘You do him really well,’ Marion said, ‘you really do.’
She hugged his arm as they turned into O’Connell Street. He put his arm around her and kissed her on the cheek. Man, it was just like the old days. ‘Let’s go up to Stephen’s Green,’ she said and so off they headed.
Everything was OK now as they sat watching the ducks. The bad times were over at last. They sat there together as happy as they had ever been looking at the old ducks swimming away. ‘They love their bread,’ said an old woman in a rain hood as she chucked half a loaf onto the water. ‘They go mad without their bread.’
‘They do,’ said Marion as she blushed a bit then laughed.
‘They do,’ said Malachy.
‘I never seen anything like ducks for bread,’ said the woman.
Part of him wanted to cry out, ‘Please, Marion!’
The late afternoon sky was the colour of lead.
He loved the way she ate yogurt. She licked it off her fingers and made sure to get any of it that slid around underneath the spoon. She always ate yogurt when she was watching TV. She brought her knees up to her chest and puckered up her nose at the best parts of the programme. Tonight she was watching Coronation Street and he was sitting beside her but he was no more interested in Coronation Street than the man in the moon. He was too busy thinking about Chinatown and the day they’d just spent together. A few times he stroked her hair without thinking and she said, ‘Oh, please – I can’t concentrate!’
He knew what she meant. It can be irritating trying to watch something when someone is distracting you. So he went into the kitchen and sat down in the armchair to read for a while, but suddenly he wanted to go back into the sitting room and ask Marion if she still loved him. He was on the verge of it but then he said to himself no – don’t! When she came in he was just standing there staring into space. He didn’t even realize he had just stood to attention. Who did he think she was – Mr Bell? ‘What are you doing, Malachy?’ she said breezily. ‘You look like you’re going to go for a crap in your trousers or something.’
He gave her a big grin. ‘Oh, you know!’ he said. Whatever that was supposed to mean.
‘Is there any pickle left?’ she asked. ‘I really fancy a sandwich.’
She hummed to herself as she opened the fridge door and it was just then that he wanted to hold her and say, ‘Please help me, Marion, I think there’s something wrong’ but all he said was ‘Yes, Marion, there is.’ Meaning the pickle, of course.
But it didn’t matter because when he looked again she was gone.
What time it was when he woke up he didn’t know. His eyelids shot open like sprung trapdoors. The broken alarm was going hell for leather outside. He was all sweaty again. He wanted to take his vest off but he was afraid to get out of the bed. He was afraid if he didn’t get back to sleep he would start thinking about Stephen Webb. In the end that didn’t matter, really, because when he rubbed his eyes again Stephen was standing there beside him with his hand up and a smirk on his face. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said. Malachy swung round so that his face was level with Webb’s. ‘What do you want?’
Stephen’s eyes twinkled and he smiled, ‘The lead on my pencil is broken, sir. It’s broken, sir. It’s broken, sir. It’s broken, sir. It’s broken, sir. It’s broken, sir. It’s broken, sir. It’s broken, sir. It’s broken, sir.’
The moon shone on Mar
ion’s locket as her chest rose and fell. Malachy had to admit that it took him a long time to pick up the courage but in the end he did and when he turned over he saw that yes she was awake too, just lying there in the dark with her eyes open, not eyes that were happy at last because the bad times were all over, but eyes that were glistening and wet with tears, thinking about the way it had once been between them.
Surprises
And would be that way again for he would see to it. So what if they had had an argument before he went off to school that morning? A fucking argument wasn’t the end of the world. It wasn’t as if other people didn’t have them. No, he was right on top of it now, after tonight there was going to be nothing to worry about, nothing to worry about at all. From now on he was going to wise up. To hell with Bell and his fucking school. Why should he be stuck in a poxy flat night after night worrying himself sick over nothing, almost losing everything he had in the process. Just as well he had come to his senses in time. Marion was going to get some surprise when she saw him.
He was standing in the rain across the road from the Project. The late-night gigs they were running had become a huge success. The rain was really pouring down now but that didn’t matter. The rain could pour down all it liked for all he cared. The only thing he was going to care about from now on was Marion. She’d be out any minute. He could hardly contain himself. What a surprise it was going to be! No more frogspawn, Marion, he’d say. Tonight or any night. And would she be glad to hear that! At last, she’d say – at long last.
Another half-hour went by. He was beginning to have second thoughts about his carefully thought-out surprise plan when the punters began to file out through the open doors. His heart leaped when he saw her. Laughter rippled out into the night. She was laughing at something Paddy Meehan was saying. He pushed his curly mane back from his face as they came down the steps. Paddy flicked a cigarette away in a tail of sparks and she laughed as he put his arm around her. When you dread something it’s a sort of relief when it happens. When he looked again he couldn’t see Marion because Paddy was in the way. You think you know how someone feels but until it happens to you you really don’t know anything at all and it was only at that moment Malachy realized once and for all just how Packie had felt. When he looked again they were standing by a white sports car and she was smoothing back her hair from her eyes. Paddy helped her into the car and then climbed in after her. For a long time afterwards Malachy just stood there in the pouring rain, frozen. By the time he started to walk, the place was deserted and the Project Arts Centre locked and shuttered.